DALLAS -- A team of seventh graders from Hyde Park Middle School in Las Vegas, Nevada, has won the mISSion imaginaTIon design challenge from Texas Instruments (TI) and NASA.

The national competition asked students to propose solutions to challenges astronauts would face on a jour-ney to Mars. The winning team proposed a vertical garden to capitalize on limited space to feed the astronauts and developed intricate plans for reinforcing the spacecraft's outer hull to protect against space debris.

"I feel like the luckiest teacher in the world to get to work with such smart, curious and driven students every day," said Robin Hill, the students’ teacher.

As a prize, winning team members Subhan Wade, Caitlyn Coloma, Jaiden Reddy, Isha Shah and Nicholas Ho received assorted space goodies and their choice of either a TI-Nspire™ CX or TI-84 Plus CE graphing calculator and software. The team's prize also includes a chat with a NASA astronaut.